Gone Girl: A Novel (21 page)

“Yeah,” came an impatient voice. A baby was crying in the background. I could hear the woman blow the hair off her face.

“Hi, is this—is this Hilary Handy?”

She hung up. I phoned back.

“Hell
o
?”

“Hi there. I think we got cut off before.”

“Would you put this number on your
do not call
list—”

“Hilary, I’m not selling anything, I’m calling about Amy Dunne—Amy Elliott.”

Silence. The baby squawked again, a mewl that wavered dangerously between laughter and tantrum.

“What about her?”

“I don’t know if you’ve seen this on TV, but she’s gone missing. She went missing on July fifth under potentially violent circumstances.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“I’m Nick Dunne, her husband. I’ve just been calling old friends of hers.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I wondered if you’d had any contact with her. Recently.”

She breathed into the phone, three deep breaths. “Is this because of that, that bullshit back in high school?” Farther in the background, a child’s wheedling voice yelled out, “Moo-oom, I nee-eed you.”

“In a minute, Jack,” she called into the void behind her. Then returned to me with a bright red voice: “Is it? Is that why you’re calling me? Because that was twenty goddamn years ago. More.”

“I know. I know. Look, I have to ask. I’d be an asshole not to ask.”

“Jesus fucking Christ. I’m a mother of
three kids
now. I haven’t talked to Amy since high school. I learned my lesson. If I saw her on the street, I’d run the other way.” The baby howled. “I gotta go.”

“Just real quick, Hilary—”

She hung up, and immediately, my disposable vibrated. I ignored it. I had to find a place to stow the damn thing.

I could feel the presence of someone, a woman, near me, but I didn’t look up, hoping she would go away.

“It’s not even noon, and you already look like you’ve had a full day, poor baby.”

Shawna Kelly. She had her hair pulled up in a high bubblegum-girl ponytail. She aimed glossed lips at me in a sympathetic pout. “You ready for some of my Frito pie?” She was bearing a casserole dish, holding it just below her breasts, the saran wrap dappled with sweat. She said the words like she was the star of some ’80s hair-rock video: You want summa my
pie
?

“Big breakfast. Thanks, though. That’s really kind of you.”

Instead of going away, she sat down. Under a turquoise tennis skirt, her legs were lotioned so well they reflected. She kicked me with the toe of an unblemished Tretorn. “You sleeping, sweetie?”

“I’m holding up.”

“You’ve got to sleep, Nick. You’re no good to anyone if you’re exhausted.”

“I might leave in a little bit, see if I can grab a few hours.”

“I think you should. I really do.”

I felt a sudden keen gratitude to her. It was my mama’s-boy attitude, rising up. Dangerous.
Crush it, Nick
.

I waited for her to go. She needed to go—people were beginning to watch us.

“If you want, I can drive you home right now,” she said. “A nap might be just the thing for you.”

She reached out to touch my knee, and I felt a burst of rage that she didn’t realize she needed to go.
Leave the casserole, you clingy groupie whore, and go
. Daddy’s-boy attitude, rising up. Just as bad.

“Why don’t you check in with Marybeth?” I said brusquely, and
pointed to my mother-in-law by the Xerox, making endless copies of Amy’s photo.

“Okay.” She lingered, so I began ignoring her outright. “I’ll leave you to it, then. Hope you like the pie.”

The dismissal had stung her, I could tell, because she made no eye contact as she left, just turned and sauntered off. I felt bad, debated apologizing, making nice.
Do not go after that woman
, I ordered myself.

“Any news?” It was Noelle Hawthorne, entering the same space Shawna had just vacated. She was younger than Shawna but seemed older—a plump body with dour, wide-spaced mounds for breasts. A frown on her face.

“Not so far.”

“You sure seem to be handling it all okay.”

I twitched my head at her, unsure what to say.

“Do you even know who I am?” she asked.

“Of course. You’re Noelle Hawthorne.”

“I’m Amy’s
best
friend here.”

I had to remind the police: There were only two options with Noelle. She was either a lying publicity whore—she liked the cachet of being pals with a missing woman—or she was crazy. A stalker determined to befriend Amy, and when Amy shirked her …

“Do you have any information about Amy, Noelle?” I asked.

“Of course I do,
Nick
. She was my
best friend
.”

We stared each other down for a few seconds.

“Are you going to share it?” I asked.

“The police know where to find me. If they ever get around to it.”

“That’s super-helpful, Noelle. I’ll make sure they talk to you.”

Her cheeks blazed red, two expressionist splatters of color.

She went away. I thought the unkind thought, one of those that burbled up beyond my control. I thought:
Women are fucking crazy
. No qualifier: Not
some
women, not
many
women. Women are crazy.

Once night fell fully, I drove to my dad’s vacant house, Amy’s clue on the seat beside me.

This one was more cryptic than the others, but I was sure I had it right. Amy was conceding Carthage, finally forgiving me for moving back here.
Maybe you feel guilty for bringing me here … [but] We made this our space
. The little brown house was my father’s house, which was actually blue, but Amy was making another inside joke. I’d always liked our inside jokes the best—they made me feel more connected to Amy than any amount of confessional truth-telling or passionate lovemaking or talk-till-sunrising. The “little brown house” story was about my father, and Amy is the only person I’d ever told it to: that after the divorce, I saw him so seldom that I decided to think of him as a character in a storybook. He was not my actual father—who would have loved me and spent time with me—but a benevolent and vaguely important figure named Mr. Brown, who was very busy doing very important things for the United States and who (very) occasionally used me as a cover to move more easily about town. Amy got tears in her eyes when I told her this, which I hadn’t meant, I’d meant it as a
kids are funny
story. She told me she was my family now, that she loved me enough to make up for ten crappy fathers, and that
we
were now the Dunnes, the two of us. And then she whispered in my ear, “I do have an assignment you might be good for …”

As for bringing back the goodwill, that was another conciliation. After my father was completely lost to the Alzheimer’s, we decided to sell his place, so Amy and I went through his house, putting together boxes for Goodwill. Amy, of course, was a whirling dervish of doing—pack, store, toss—while I sifted through my father’s things glacially. For me, everything was a clue. A mug with deeper coffee stains than the others must be his favorite. Was it a gift? Who gave it to him? Or did he buy it himself? I pictured my father finding the very act of shopping emasculating. Still, an inspection of his closet revealed five pairs of shoes, shiny new, still in their boxes. Had he bought these himself, picturing a different, more social Bill Dunne than the one slowly unspooling alone? Did he go to Shoe-Be-Doo-Be, get my mother to help him, just another in a long line of her casual kindnesses? Of course, I didn’t share any of these musings with Amy, so I’m sure I came off as the goldbricker I so often am.

“Here. A box. For Goodwill,” she said, catching me on the floor, leaning against a wall, staring at a shoe. “You put the shoes in the box. Okay?” I was embarrassed, I snarled at her, she snapped at me, and … the usual.

I should add, in Amy’s defense, that she’d asked me twice if I wanted to talk, if I was sure I wanted to do this. I sometimes leave out details like that. It’s more convenient for me. In truth, I wanted her to read my mind so I didn’t have to stoop to the womanly art of articulation. I was sometimes as guilty of playing the figure-me-out game as Amy was. I’ve left that bit of information out too.

I’m a big fan of the lie of omission.

I pulled up in front of my dad’s house just after ten
P.M
. It was a tidy little place, a good starter home (or ender home). Two bedrooms, two baths, dining room, dated but decent kitchen. A for-sale sign rusted in the front yard. One year and not a bite.

I entered the stuffy house, the heat rolling over me. The budget alarm system we installed after the third break-in began beeping, like a bomb countdown. I input the code, the one that drove Amy insane because it went against every rule about codes. It was my birthday: 81577.

Code rejected
. I tried again.
Code rejected
. A bead of sweat rolled down my back. Amy had always threatened to change the code. She said it was pointless to have one that was so guessable, but I knew the real reason. She resented that it was my birthday and not our anniversary: Once again I’d chosen
me
over
us
. My semi-sweet nostalgia for Amy disappeared. I stabbed my finger at the numbers again, growing more panicked as the alarm beeped and beeped and beeped its countdown—until it went into full intruder blare.

Woooonk-woooonk-woooonk!

My cell phone was supposed to ring so I could give the all-clear:
Just me, the idiot
. But it didn’t. I waited a full minute, the alarm reminding me of a torpedoed-submarine movie. The canned heat of a closed house in July shimmered over me. My shirt back was already soaked.
Goddammit, Amy
. I scanned the alarm for the company’s number and found nothing. I pulled over a chair and began yanking at the alarm; I had it off the wall, hanging by the cords, when my phone finally rang. A bitchy voice on the other end demanded Amy’s first pet’s name.

Woooonk-woooonk-woooonk!

It was exactly the wrong tone—smug, petulant, utterly unconcerned—and exactly the wrong question, because I didn’t know the answer, which infuriated me. No matter how many clues I solved, I’d be faced with some Amy trivia to unman me.

“Look, this is Nick Dunne, this is my dad’s house, this account was set up by me,” I snapped. “So it doesn’t really fucking matter what my wife’s first pet’s name was.”

Woooonk-woooonk-woooonk!

“Please don’t take that tone with me, sir.”

“Look, I just came in to grab one thing from my dad’s house, and now I’m leaving, okay?”

“I have to notify the police immediately.”

“Can you just turn off the goddamn alarm so I can think?”

Woooonk-woooonk-woooonk!

“The alarm’s off.”

“The alarm is not off.”

“Sir, I warned you once, do not take that tone with me.”

You fucking bitch
.

“You know what? Fuck it, fuck it,
fuck it
.”

I hung up just as I remembered Amy’s cat’s name, the very first one: Stuart.

I called back, got a different operator, a reasonable operator, who turned off the alarm and, God bless her, called off the police. I really wasn’t in the mood to explain myself.

I sat on the thin, cheap carpet and made myself breathe, my heart clattering. After a minute, after my shoulders untensed and my jaw unclenched and my hands unfisted and my heart returned to normal, I stood up and momentarily debated just leaving, as if that would teach Amy a lesson. But as I stood up, I saw a blue envelope left on the kitchen counter like a Dear John note.

I took a deep breath, blew it out—new attitude—and opened the envelope, pulled out the letter marked with a heart.

If Amy were with me, as she’d planned on being, she would have nuzzled into me the way she used to do, her face in the crook of my neck, and she would have kissed me and smiled and said,
You are, you know. My sun
. My throat tight, I took a final look around my father’s house and left, closing the door on the heat. In my car, I fumbled open the envelope marked fourth clue. We had to be near the end.